Assessing Organizational Capacity to Advance Health Equity: Mixed-Methods Approach at a Local Health Department

Abstract

Local health departments (LHDs) play a leading role in eliminating health inequities as they proactively identify and address barriers to optimal health within the community they serve. This study evaluated a Midwestern County LHD’s commitment, collaborations, and capacity to advance health equity in their organization. A total of 81 employees completed the online survey (response rate = 51%) and 12 among randomly selected employees completed the qualitative interviews (31.5%). More than 75% of participants reported that all departments had explicit work plans and 50% had a strong capacity to address social determinants of health. Almost 50% of the participants reported strong internal collaboration, but less than 25% indicated that no external partners were involved during the program planning process. Finally, a few participants identified the need for increased diversity in leadership and expressed the importance of quality training and feedback.

Keywords

health equity organizational capacity health equity assessment community collaborations local health department

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Building organizational capacity to advance health equity. Atlanta, GE: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Division of Community Health. 2022. https://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/dnpao/health-equity/health-equity-guide/pdf/health-equity-guide/Health-Equity-Guide-sect-1-1.pdf

Advancing Health Equity in Chronic Disease Prevention and Management . National center for chronic Disease prevention and health promotion. Atlanta, GE: Centers for Disease Control, 2022. https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/healthequity/index.htm

Lee

Kim

Lee

, et al. The concepts of health inequality, disparities and equity in the era of population health. Appl Nurs Res 2020; 56: 151367. DOI: 10.1016/j.apnr.2020.151367.

Shah

Sheahan

. Local health departments’ activities to address health disparities and inequities: are we moving in the right direction? Int J Environ Res Publ Health 2015; 13(1): ijerph13010044. DOI: 10.3390/ijerph13010044.

Miller

. New workforce survey: public health turnover could pose threat to community health. Bethesda, MA: de Beaumont Foundation, 2019. https://debeaumont.org/news/2019/new-workforce-survey-public-health-turnover-could-pose-threat-to-community-health/(Accessed 30 January 2023).

Ferris

. Health equity assessment: a brief review. Eagan, MN: The Center for Prevention at Blue Cross and Shield of Minnesota, June 2015. https://www.wilder.org/sites/default/files/imports/ToolReivew_OrganizationalAssessments_HealthEquity_6-15.pdf (Accessed 10 December 2022).

Good

. Building organizational capacity for health equity action: a framework and assessment tool for public health. Sarnia, ON: Lambton Public Health, January 2017. https://nccdh.ca/images/uploads/comments/Lambton-Public-Health-Building-Organizational-Capacity-for-Health-Equity_2017.pdf (Accessed 8 December 2022).

Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative . Local health department organizational self-assessment for addressing health inequities: toolkit and guide to implementation. Oakland, CA: Bay Area Regional Health Inequities Initiative. https://www.barhii.org/organizational-self-assessment-tool

Creswell

Hirose

. Mixed methods and survey research in family medicine and community health. Fam Med Community Health 2019; 7(2), e000086.

10.

Creswell

. Analyzing and interpreting qualitative data. In: Educational Research: planning, conducting, and evaluating quantitative and qualitative research. 4th ed. Boston MA: Pearson Education, Inc, 2012.

11.

Kuckartz

. Qualitative text analysis: a guide to methods, practice and using software. Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Sage, 2014.

12.

Meyer

A-M

Davis

Mays

. Defining organizational capacity for public health services and systems research. J Publ Health Manag Pract 2012; 18(6): 535–544. DOI: 10.1097/PHH.0b013e31825ce928.

13.

Standards and measures for initial accreditation. Alexandria, VA: The Public Health Accreditation Board, 2022. https://phaboard.org/wp-content/uploads/Standards-Measures-Initial-Accreditation-Version-2022.pdf (Accessed 16 December 2022).

14.

Newman

Leep

. Workforce turnover at local health departments: nature, characteristics, and implications. Am J Prev Med. 2014;47(5 Supplement 3):S337-S343. doi:10.1016/j.amepre.2014.07.023.

15.

2019 national profile of local health departments. Washington, DC: National Association of County and City Health Officials, 2020. https://www.naccho.org/uploads/downloadable-resources/Programs/Public-Health-Infrastructure/NACCHO_2019_Profile_final.pdf

16.

Yeager

Leider

. The role of salary in recruiting employees in state and local governmental public health: PH WINS 2017. Am J Publ Health 2019; 109(5): 683–685. DOI: 10.2105/ajph.2019.305008.

17.

Locke

McGinty

Guerrero Ramirez

, et al. Attracting new talent to the governmental public health workforce: strategies for improved recruitment of public health graduates. J Publ Health Manag Pract 2022; 28(1): E235–E243. DOI: 10.1097/PHH.0000000000001336.

18.

Duran

Oetzel

Magarati

, et al. Toward health equity: a national study of promising practices in community-based participatory research. Prog Community Health Partnersh 2019; 13(4): 337–352. DOI: 10.1353/cpr.2019.0067.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.30 MB